Obama Joins Putin War as Syria Jihadists Stalk Olympics

President Vladimir Putin is turning to Barack Obama for help protecting the costliest Winter Games ever from attacks by Islamic extremists, including hundreds of battle-hardened jihadists now fighting in Syria.

About 400 Russian nationals, mainly from the North Caucasus, are currently battling President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria and their return poses a “big threat,” according to Sergei Smirnov, deputy director of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the Soviet KGB.

“Many of our compatriots are fighting on the side of al-Qaeda in Syria,” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, who’s in charge of preparations for the Feb. 7-23 event, said in an interview in Moscow on Oct. 21. “We understand this is a global threat and we can only prevent it through joint efforts.”

As Russia prepares to seal off Sochi, a Black Sea resort of 345,000 people, it’s reaching out to the U.S. and about 80 other nations for help identifying potential threats from abroad, Alexei Lavrishchev, a senior FSB official, said Oct. 2.

At the top of the list are the Russian militants in Syria, whose numbers may be triple what the FSB is saying publicly, according to the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies in Moscow, which expects a third of those fighters to return home.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-24/obama-joins-putin-war-as-syria-jihadists-stalk-olympics.html